5 July

Farewell to the cruise ship

7:00 – All bags had to have coloured tags and placed outside the cabin doors by then.

This meant an early start and breakfast. Some people were making their own departure arrangements; some were taking the extension to Prague by bus; we were going home to Melbourne but our flight was not until 7 pm. Continue reading →

4 July – Last Day

Budapest is Eastern Europe’s liveliest and most cosmopolitan city. We did a guided tour of the city sights including the Royal Palace of Buda, hilltop castle complex with Fisherman’s Bastion and the Matthias Church, and the Chain Bridge linking Buda and Pest.

Buda is on the left and Pest on the right. The Danube runs through this city.

2 July

Today’s stop was Vienna, the “City of Waltzes”. We explored Austria’s capital starting with a drive along the Ringstrasse, where we saw Vienna’s world famous Opera House, Burgtheatre, Spanish Riding School (not the actual horses), Town Hall, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Hofburg Imperial Palace.

1 July

Situated within Austria’s wine–growing region, Melk is home to an imposing 900–year old Benedictine Abbey which features Austria’s finest Italian baroque architecture, with its ornate gold leaf walls, 640ft Imperial Corridor and fresco ceilings.

30 June

Cobblestone streets and graceful arcades welcomed us in the beautiful city of Passau, but we had opted for the tour to Salzburg in Austria. Others took the optional trip to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic while the rest took the walking tour of Passau and checked out the old town’s narrow alleys and saw the hilltop Oberhaus Fortress from the town below.

28 June

Today, we took in a sightseeing tour of the historic city of Nuremberg. We saw the storybook 900-year-old ramparts, the Imperial Castle and the Justice Palace where the War Crimes Tribunal sat in 1946.

27 June

This morning we cruised through the Main-Danube Canal to Bamberg. We explored this UNESCO World Heritage city with our guide. Boasting one of Europe’s largest intact medieval town centres, Bamberg is bursting with character and charm.

25 June

Miltenberg is a picturesque village on the Main (pronounced “mine”) River, which creates a realistic feeling of Bavarian life in medieval times owing to the Old Town being lined with well-preserved half-timbered buildings. This was a late sleep-in day, as it is a long journey from Rudesheim.

21 June

Reaching the cruise ship

The coach from Paris took us directly to our river cruise ship in Amsterdam. The ship was built by Shipyard De Hoop. We were greeted by the Captain at a cocktail reception, which was followed by a buffet dinner.

The flight, 7 June

We flew Singapore Airlines flight SQ338, which left Melbourne at 10:25 am and landed in Singapore at 4:20 pm the same day. The flight was part of the river cruise package, although we were flying out much earlier to stop in Singapore and the UK before reaching Paris.

Changi Airport SIMs

We bought Starhub prepaid “Happy” SIMs for SG$50, which included $50 credit for voice, text and free data. (That $50 product isn’t on their website for some reason.) Given the amount of free wi-fi around, it was more than enough. There is also a SG$18 SIM that would suffice anyone who only wants data but no voice. In case you return to Singapore within six months, the number and credit will still be usable.Continue reading →

This site documents our European river cruise from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Budapest in Hungary in 2014. We are recording our own memories, such as a car drive we did in New Zealand from Cape Reinga to Bluff. We are launching it before the cruise begins, but we hope to publish each leg of the trip when it happens.